“Maybe I could talk to those girls. If you told me . . .”
“Leave it alone. It doesn’t matter.”
Titian gave her a long look filled with warning, and Jaenelle Saetien suddenly wondered if Uncle Lucivar was in his study taking care of the business of ruling Askavi—or if he was in the weapons room sharpening his knives.
NINETEEN
Daemonar breathed in crisp autumn air and headed for his favorite bakery on Riada’s main street. It was one of the few places open this early in the morning, and twice a week, he was the first customer because he’d been up well before the sun, practicing the Dea al Mon style of fighting with Chaosti. The dark power that permeated the Keep allowed the demon-dead Warlord Prince more time to interact with the living, but Chaosti and Karla preferred to retire soon after dawn turned to full daylight.
So his fighting and strategy lessons were finished by daybreak, and because he was a young man and a Warlord Prince, breakfast became his next priority. A fruit pastry and a folded bread filled with cheese and spicy meat would go down well with a large mug of coffee. And after that? He wasn’t required to report to Hallevar and do any sparring with the other Eyriens on these days, but he still felt edgy and could do with a little more physical work before going home to sort the mail and spend a couple of hours with his father learning the “desk” side of ruling a territory like Ebon Rih—or a Territory like Askavi.
His mother still handled the social invitations, but after being reassured that her firstborn wasn’t being given too much to handle on top of his studies, she’d handed over the business tasks connected with Ebon Rih without a backward glance. Oh, she still met with the women who preferred telling her their concerns, and she still paid all the monthly bills submitted by Riada’s merchants, but the time she no longer gave her husband for paperwork was spent at her loom, where she created pieces that were as artistically beautiful as they were practical.
She’d even been invited to contribute some of her work for an exhibit in Dharo, the Territory famed for its carpets and fabrics.
His mother was happy with her home and her family and her work, and he didn’t want to spoil that. But he had to think about—
“Daemonar!”
Hell’s fire, what’s she doing up at this hour? he thought as Orian rushed toward him, then stopped and covered the rest of the distance with a suggestive hip-swaying walk that made him embarrassed on her behalf. A Queen shouldn’t act like that. Not in public.
Something off about this.
As she came toward him, Daemonar created a tight Green shield around himself that would prevent her from touching him. Then he formed a defensive shield a finger length above that—a shield that included a bit of Craft Auntie J. called a kiss of lightning.
Orian wasn’t alone, but the two Rihlander girls who were part of her current unofficial court remained on the other side of the street, watching.
“Orian,” he said when she reached him.
She clearly expected him to invite her to join him for breakfast. Since he wasn’t interested in spending an hour with her while she tried to make plans for his future, he just stood there, waiting for her to say something.
“I need to get to work.” He’d learned not to ask if there was something she wanted, since she usually wanted something he didn’t want to give.
Angry? Petulant? Desperate? He couldn’t name the feeling he saw on her face, and he didn’t care. She’d ignored him for years, which had been a relief, but lately she’d been trying to renew their “friendship” and seemed determined to put him in a compromising position that would create some obligation to her.
She stepped closer. He didn’t step back, wouldn’t yield even that much since he was protected by Green shields.
She reached for his arm, then shrieked when the Green defensive shield sizzled, inflicting enough pain to hurt like a wicked bitch without doing permanent damage.
Thank you, Auntie J.
“Don’t touch me,” he said quietly.
Fury filled her eyes, but her words were quietly spoken, and the sound of her voice became enticing, persuasive. “I have a device that can make a man feel all kinds of things when it’s slipped around his cock. If I put it on you, you wouldn’t dare turn down an invitation from a Queen.”
For a moment, all he could hear was his heart pounding. All he could feel . . .
Lucivar set a shielded gold ring on the edge of the blackwood desk.
Daemonar leaned forward to get a better look. Too big for anyone’s finger, so . . .
“It’s called a Ring of Obedience,” Lucivar said. “It’s put on a man’s cock.”
“Like a Ring of Honor?”
“The difference in what they’re called should tell you something about how they’re used. Some of . . . the High Lord’s men retrieved a sack of goods from a smuggler who didn’t survive the journey through the Sleeping Dragons. A few of those Rings were in the sack.”
Lucivar gave him a long look, as if trying to force himself to step up to a line. “I can share a memory of what it’s like to wear a Ring of Obedience, of what it feels like to be punished. A few seconds. No more. But only if you want to know.”
His father didn’t want him to know. That much was clear. And that was why he said, “Show me.”
A memory of something that had been done to Lucivar long ago. But as soon as mind touched mind to share that memory, it felt like his nerves were on fire, and he thought his cock and balls would explode from the pain. Terrible. Terrifying.
Done.
As he struggled to catch his breath and wipe the tears from his face, he watched Lucivar’s hands tremble as his father poured two large whiskeys and held one out—then had to help him hold the glass.
“That’s what the Queens in Terreille did to you?” he asked when he could draw a full breath.
“That’s what they did.”
“More than once.” Not a question.
“More than once,” Lucivar confirmed. “For centuries, boyo. Every time I defied them, and that was often.”
“How old . . . ?”
“A little older than you. I’d made the Blood Run. I wasn’t close to making the Offering to the Darkness, but I was getting too strong to be controlled any other way, too good in a fight.”
“How did you survive?”
Lucivar smiled. “For a long time, I was just too angry to give up and watch the bitches hurt anyone else. Then I held on and kept fighting because I was told the Queen was coming. In the end, it took almost dying to find her again after our first brief meeting.”
To hold on so long for a dream. “Uncle Daemon?”
Lucivar swallowed hard. “He was Ringed soon after his Birthright Ceremony.”
Daemonar met his father’s eyes. To be a boy and feel that pain, to be punished with that pain again and again and again. To shape yourself into a weapon that could strike back in retaliation. To become someone who could wrap pain in desire and need so intense, it would ensnare an enemy and crush them. Crush every part of them.
Now he had some idea of the pain that had birthed the Sadist.